Posts Tagged ‘Color Forecasting’

What is the next color over the rainbow?

As a color designer we are asked time and time again as to what is hot? What is the latest trend? If the inquirer is designing a product it can be a very important question, but if it is a consumer, what difference does it make? Is it merely curiosity on their part or will they rush home and change everything in their homes? We can also preface our answer with, hot in what? And, hot does not mean best seller, it may mean that it is just “different” from anything out there.  Fashionable automotive colors will not tell most people what color to paint their bedrooms. Trendy interior product colors will not tell the inexperienced what color to paint their front door and there are dozens of questions that need to be answered before a definitive color solution can be determined. Following a trail of influence is essential to finding true satisfying results. Listed below is a brief overview of where to find the appropriate color origins for the elusive hot color you may be looking for.

• Is the color for an Interior or an exterior? Typically exterior colors are based on neutral and near neutral colors because they need to last a long time, sometimes as long as 40 or 50 years. You wouldn’t want to have something really trendy, and in 10 years have it look dated and out of place. Chic new colors could be used on the front door or shutters where they can be refreshed when the hue goes out of style. Exterior colors get their influence from interior colors that have lasted the test of time and then they are neutralized to give them longevity.
• If the color is for an interior then the question would be what room is it going to be used, but most of all what is in that room already? If you want the hip color will it fit into the current environment? Fashionable interior colors can derived from women’s fashion palettes, but don’t be so quick as to take them in their original context, usually they become interior colors once they have proved themselves and last more than one season. Then they may be interpreted as neutrals, near neutrals or watered down versions of the original color. Look more the color combinations in fashions, they are more likely to become evident in what you can put in your home. You would be more likely to use a stylish color as an accent wall or an item such as pillows, wall décor, area rugs or accessories, as long as they work with what is already in a room.
• Other factors that influence color trends are evident in the news, on television and most of all on the internet. What a first lady is wearing, what a sitcom has as a set design, good economy, bad economy and emerging lifestyle changes are just a few of the triggers for colors emerging in the marketplace.
• So, with all of that…..What is on the other side of the rainbow? With a glimmer of hope that the economy will improve we see brighter, cleaner colors on the horizon. We are in an era of dusty, neutralized colors for interior and exterior colors and they will remain popular but the evolution of the high chroma colors will advance, slowly but surely. 
• The question that is the answer to this all is “think of a color you have never seen”. In it the answer is, there are no new colors, just new combinations, new uses of color on existing products and new textures and effects that make existing colors look different so that we can call them “new”.